Drs. Timothy W. Freer and Michael J. Ulissey of the Women's Diagnostic Breast Health Center in Plano, Texas sought to determine how effective computer-aided detection might be in improving sensitivity of mammography screening. Their institution had purchased such a system following the US Food and Drug Administration approval of the first commercially available device in 1998.
Over a 12-month period, mammograms from 12,860 patients were initially interpreted without computer assistance, the researchers report in the September issue of the journal Radiology. The computer system was then used to evaluate each mammogram, which was then re-interpreted by the radiologist.
Compared with the results without computer assistance, the number of cancers detected increased 19.5% and the proportion of early-stage malignancies detected rose from 73% to 78%. The recall rate increased from 6.5% to 7.7%.
Freer told Reuters Health that ``we can reduce mortality from breast cancer by 63% in women who are getting their annual mammogram. Nonetheless, 21% of the time, highly experienced radiologists overlook the extremely subtle signs of breast cancer and miss the opportunity for the earliest possible detection.'' Computer-aided detection ``has the potential to eliminate the majority of these oversights.''
If further clinical trials back up these findings, he added, computer-aided detection ``will prove to be a true technological leap and the greatest single advance in breast cancer detection in the last 20 years.''SOURCE: Radiology 2001;220:781-786.